The Importance of Playing

The last gig I did was at Centrefest in Red Deer, Alberta. I drove to Red Deer on Wednesday, July 22. Thursday evening we (the cast of the festival) performed at a sponsor dinner, Friday we did the press launch around noon, and shows kicked into high gear on Saturday.

Friday afternoon following the press launch Rob Torres suggested that we head to the Red Deer River with some air mattresses and spend a decent chunk of the afternoon floating down the river and enjoying each other’s company. This idea appealed to a fair number of the performers not to mention the artistic producer of the festival, so a quick trip to Walmart later and we had enough air mattresses to accommodate the crew along with one blue walrus who became the mascot of the journey.

My original intention for the afternoon was to get some work done… Catch up on some emails and lay low, but when this opportunity came up I realized that there was far more value in playing hooky from ‘work’ and getting out and playing with the crew at the festival. I knew that the memories forged from this mutual experience would be of far greater value than any amount of emailing I was going to accomplish and I was 100% right.

The adventure (and indeed it was an adventure) had it’s twists and turns and once we’d finished floating we had to call and get help from the festival stage manager who came and picked us up. The ended up being more challenging and frustrating that any of us had initially imagined, so I felt some sort of GGOL was required and knowing our stage managers fondness for Tequila was an easy fix with a quick trip to a liqueur store.

The float down the river was a pretty great way to spend a decent chunk of the afternoon. The tequila was an easy way to say thank you for being picked up and in the end the adventure only amounted to a cost of $10.00 per person for those who decided that adventure was more important than what ever other obligations were perceived to be important.

The memory of this afternoon will stay with me and those involved for the rest of our lives. An afternoon spent in a hotel room… Not so much. Will this lead to work? I mean Monday’s are after all about marketing… Who knows. But a willingness to play and the ability to hang does sometimes sway the vote if a job opportunity is between you and someone else who is interested in a given gig.